Relief from horns could be 18 months away as crossing safety is addressed
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff Writer
Mayor Bob Miller calls it a “one size fits all” ruling.
A handful of area citizens call it reason to ask for City Administrator Kevin Lahner’s head on a platter.
Still others consider it a minor headache, nothing more.
But as of around 5 p.m. on July 18, the City of Burlington can call the train horns of Canadian National Railroad a big headache – and likely one for some time to come, as Lahner estimated it will take at least a few months to fix the problem and maybe as long as a year and a half.
The city issued a press release at that time, one that was simple and to the point.
“The City of Burlington’s request for a waiver petition that would allow more time to comply with the Federal Railroad Administration’s quiet zone requirements has been denied,” read the release, in regard to a safety board hearing that was held July 10. “This means that Wisconsin Central/Canadian National Railroad trains are required to blow their horns as they traverse the City of Burlington, as they have been since June 26 of this year.”
The press release went on to say that the city is working to meet federal regulations, and outlined that trains are required to sound horns as they approach each intersection.
Community sounds off
That didn’t stop the complaints. A sampling of the comments from the city’s Facebook page following the posting (presented as typed):
• Jill Jones Frederick – “did someone overlook the envelope telling them this was coming down the line so that they could have done the work needed BEFORE all this?”
• Traci Lang – “Rumor has it someone in Burlington city hall did fail to put ducks in place on time. But that’s just what I heard at the nail salon lol!”
• Karena Hanson-Gramer – “Yes, my mom lives at the Boardwalk. It’s such a nuisance!”
• Vince Hebein – “I think someone in city hall owes us an apology for not doing there (sic) job. So what’s the game plan to make it STOP?”
There were a few among the posters who found the situation humorous:
• Jason Rickert – “This make me laugh! Sucks to live in town!”
• Erin Delikat Herrell – “Trains blow…..bwahahaha”
Of course, some weren’t finding the situation anywhere near humorous, as Melissa Herbers said.
“I don’t live at the Boardwalk. I find it disturbing that some of you find this funny,” Herbers said. “I hope nothing happens on your street that disrupts your life as this has done for so many unknowing people ‘in town.’ If I was aware of such disruptive train horns when I moved here four years ago, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Deadline missed
The problem, of course, is that the city had its quiet zone and had no reason to expect it to be revoked, even when it learned it would miss a deadline to make safety upgrades at the city’s five rail crossings. Lahner has said the missed deadline was likely a data entry error on his part or another staff member that led officials to believe the deadline was in June 2014 rather than June 2013.
Even with the notice that they were a year off, city staff had not only hoped that an exception would be made, but also that the horns would not start sounding before the safety board hearing was held.
The city was wrong – on both accounts, and both Miller and Lahner are disappointed.
“It appears to be the ruling is a one-size-fits-all ruling and doesn’t take into account any variables,” said Miller, who added that Wauwatosa and Superior both had variances denied as well.
Lahner added that the city isn’t fighting the regulation, and the crossings have gotten safer since the change in regulations.
“It seems illogical to me to not give us an extension when everything’s in place to make the final improvement,” he said.
In addition, Burlington has not had a train-related car accident since 1983, Lahner pointed out. There has been a death, but that was ruled a suicide.
Crossing options
It doesn’t matter, though, to the FRA, which leaves the city with four options to deal with the one crossing that still needs to be fixed to fall in compliance with upgraded safety requirements.
That is the Milwaukee Avenue crossing, and it isn’t as simple as just closing the crossing. In fact, said Lahner, closing the crossing there and also at Chestnut Street wouldn’t get the city enough points under the FRA calculations to regain the quiet zone status.
“If it would, I would be out there putting up the barricades myself,” Lahner said.
So the city is left with four options – to place quad gates as originally planned, put medians in on Milwaukee Avenue as it has at Jefferson Street and at Adams Street, create a paired one-way (divided highway) intersection, or place a horn on the gates that blasts at oncoming traffic as a train passes.
The later would involve more noise than the current train horns, but only at the Milwaukee Avenue intersection.
The medians and divided highway options are also not ideal, as traffic would not be able to turn across lanes to reach businesses such as Bear Realty, Charcoal Grill and Fred’s.
The only real option the city sees as feasible is the locking quad gates, but both the railroad and the FRA seem to be dragging their feet. The railroad will have to install the quad gate system, not the city, which puts the city at the mercy of the railroad’s schedule.
“Now we’re back to ‘we’re not really fond of that,’” Miller said. “Of the four choices they’ve given us, it’s the only one that works.”
Miller and Lahner both called for patience as the city is working to resolve the issue.
“We were doing everything we were supposed to do for a major capital project,” Lahner said. “We were just off by a year.
He also added, “We can’t control the railroad, and we can’t control their schedules.”
-
-
-
-
-
I wondered how long it would take for this to affect more than just people living along the tracks. Installing the dividers would be horrible for Bear Realty, Charcoal Grill & Fred’s Parkview, as well as traffic. Not so funny now is it?
As for being on the railroads schedule, not so much. Kevin Lahner has had since 2007 to get this done and put everything off until the last minute and it has come back to bite him. 2013 or 2014, what is the difference? The requirements were sent to him in 2007! It would seem to me that the Milwaukee Avenue crossing is intricate enough that he should have allowed ample time to do traffic surveys & study valid options, not wait until 2013 to deal with it. Yes, his head should be on a platter. Remember, recent reports peg him as being responsible for paperwork errors in the city budget as well! Burlington is paying 6 figures for a City Administrator, it is time we get one who pays attention & does his/her job. Now city residents will be paying for his lack of action and “oversights”. Unfortunate!
“PLEASE GET THIS DONE” ~~ Here comes another one ~~ UGH! Tell me why some of these engineers do “not” pause at all between intersections. It’s not a warning “BEEP”, it’s full blown and “deafening”! They “lay” on that horn even “after” the “last” intersection. I’m angry how some people make “light” of this situation. I’d like “you” to see how you’d feel being woke up at 11 PM by the “LOUD” horns. One more thing! At first they said that the city just forgot to “renew” the permit. NOW, they’re saying that the Milwaukee gates have to be doubled, etc. Why all these “OTHER” excuses now??
The FRA mandates a 20 second warning before entering into a grade crossing. So yes, the engineer will blow the horn to be compliant with the law. Judith, the men and women who work for the railroad are only doing their job and ALL of them take safety seriously. Hitting a car at a grade crossing with a train is similar to you driving over a soda can with your car. The life that is saved by blowing the horn could very well be your own.
There is a lot more to upgrading the gates than simply bolting/unbolting existing gates.
1) The railroad only has a given number of signal gangs on the system and they likely have more pressing duties. Likewise the gate issue may not be at the top of their list of priorities. Unless there is a safety issue (for the railroad) they are not likely to rearrange their schedules and regard this as an emergency simply because some residents regard this as a nuisance.
2) There is engineering involved. Quad gate installations require more warning and reaction time for the signal system. There also needs to be gate delays calculated so that all gates do not drop simultaneously; allowing the crossing to begin warning traffic of an oncoming traing, but not causing a vehicle to be trapped on the tracks by the two gates. This would likely also involve a tie in to existing traffic signals at Commerce & Milwaukee Ave. Depending on the speed of the trains this may have a cascading effect on the adjacent crossings in regards to how far down the tracks a crossing’s equipment needs to “look” for a train.
3) Adding quad/interlocking gates will require additional equipment to be ordered which the railroad may not have sitting around on hand. Depending on the amount of work involved the railroad may need to wire and install a brand new house to accomodate all the equipment if the current house does not have the room/capacity for the new equipment needed. This could be at the mercy of railroad signal wiring shop schedules which may have more pressing projects to complete. Or, the railroad may have it wired into the existing house which would require additional man-hours to complete as opposed to a new house that the railroad can drop into place.
In summary, yes the city is at the mercy of the railroad and residents will need to be patient. But bad planning on the city’s part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on the railroad’s part.
Explained brilliantly. Very good post Nick.
Nick, thanks for the outline of all the work that needs to be done. Yes it is complex, but the city is only at the mercy of the railroad company because of incompetence of a single person. That single person should be held accountable. Are their potential impacts to the City’s budget now in order to get this all done? What extra time would budget approval add to this? Think of all the schools that will be disturbed now when class is in session.
sad thing about the train in this picture it hit a guy in waukesha
Do you mean the only thing stopping the problem from being solved is worrying about traffic into Bear Realty, Charcoal Grill and Fred’s?
Good Lord put the median in now who cares about left turns into these places – they shouldn’t be allowed anyway! Its so annoying for traffic when people take these turns there.
Money money money follow the money horns are sounding and literally thousands are being inconveniences/no sleep because the city puppets are serving their masters. Are the puppets too stupid to even put these medians in temporarily?
Remember when you do business with Bear Realty, Charcoal Grill and Fred’s you’re supporting the train horns. Maybe if we stop going there they will support the medians.
Hold Fred’s, Charcoal Grill & Bear accountable for the City waiting 8 years to make necessary & required improvements? I read that response several times and it still makes no sense what-so-ever! I love the fact Betty is fired up, but why not channel that aggression to Kevin Lahner and ask him when he received the memo on improvements and why they waited 8 years to deal with it instead of calling for the head of local business owners.
I live quite a distance from Burlington and I like the train horns sounding off in the distance.
if what the “local resident’ at the beginning of the comments statement is correct and the board knew in 2007, and now recently admitted they ‘overlooked it’ and thought they had till 2014 instead of 2013, why should this be a priority for the Railroad to get it done when the town of Burlington screwed up?
It’s like I always tell my kids, your poor planning doesn’t become MY emergency!
18 months is unacceptable for both the towns residents within close earshot of the trains and the poor people at the hotel. Shame on you Kevin Lahner and anyone else who was responsible for this MAJOR mistake. If I made that mistake at work, I would be looking for a new job!
Maybe the town should make a recording of the daily train horns sound from those who live closest to it and put it outside his house to be played until this is fixed!
*sorry..the City of Burlington
just remember, they dont want to annoy you either. Its all about safey and the idiots that try to beat the train or walkers at a sidewalk with kids….. I think if a kid got hit , nightmares. just a thought, be Safe
Most people I’ve talked to dont even notice the horns anymore. Even if you do, embrace them! They bring character to Burlington (a name synonymous with RR for a very long time, although not this Burlington) and remind us of the history of this small town. The Charcoal Grill is actually designed around the “rich railroad history of Burlington”. It’s not the RR’s or the city government’s fault someone had lack of foresight and built apartments along the tracks. Even more so those who moved into those apartments knowing the tracks were right there.
Yes! The horns are noisy! Face it! Mukwonago, Waukesha, and other cummunities up and down the line have no horns. That’s because they complied. If the RR gives an exemption and some one gets hurt or killed because of it. Who gets sued? The city had over 2160 days to comply. Why should the RR jump for us. It’s a safety issue! Not a comfort issue. Some of these other cities had this completed over 2 years ago. Burlington Screwed Up, Not them. How much would Burlington be paying in fines if that was a condition because someone read the date wrong. What would the city charge me if I read the date wrong for paying my taxes. Sorry that is no excuse.